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San Diego’s Sad Food Commentary

It’s a sad day for San Diego’s home cooks and restaurant-goers when The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Wednesday food section loses two well-known food writers (Maria Hunt and Maureen Clancy) and turns the section into a measly two and a half to three pages of print.

Is this what a city and county of 2.9 million people deserve? No wonder restaurants struggle to gain national recognition when the city’s only mainstream paper chooses to diminish the importance of food and those who grow, buy, cook and serve it. Like the rest of the paper, this section will muddle along with wire stories and little, if any, pertinent local news. The paper sees the future of food and news online rather than in print. No one wins with this shortsighted thinking. What’s your opinion?

9 thoughts on “San Diego’s Sad Food Commentary”

I certainly agree. I always looked forward the the food section on Wednesday and Maureen’s columns. I think it is is so shortsighted. The food, restaurant sector is an important part of the SD economy and this action by the paper is incredibly shortsighted.

I just found this site linked from VOSD. Wow, I hadn’t heard that about the food section in the UT, but no surprise given the cutbacks in every other section. I’ve been threatening to cancel for months, this is just one more reason to do so. Yes, I’m part of the problem, but don’t expect me to pay for a bunch of syndicated, non-local, non-relevant articles. The UT thinks that readership is down due to online, when in fact they are shooting themselves in the foot. Tragic. They send emails saying their emphasis will be online, but again, who’s going to write these original online articles? I’m hoping this site will at least help me find great restaurants.

Give me a break, you guys. If you want to talk about the sadness of losing food writers in general, fine. And if you want to say Maureen was a gem, I’ll buy that (she retired — not pushed out). But Maria? She was awful. Her reviews were spotty and inconsistent. Unlike other food reviewers, she did not review on a regular basis so one never knew when there would be a restaurant review. And I heard from friends in the biz that she announced herself before coming to do a review because she wanted the staff to treat her special. I’d rather have no food reviewer than that one.

They’re still going to have original food writers, just not those two. And there is original food writing all over Signon. Have you looked, discdude?

Wow. I’m reading these comments for the first time — a friend sent me the link some time ago but I forgot to look at it!
It’s nice to know that one is missed. But Momguin, Lulu and the other much-appreciated (by me!) food lovers can still share tasty food news with my at my Web site http://www.maureenclancy.com.
I’m also glad to now be in the FoodBuzzSD loop. I’ll check it frequently.

I moved from Minneapolis 4 years ago I was shocked at the state of the food scene here in San Diego. Minneapolis is in the frozen tundra and not too many years ago all salads meant jello. It has a booming food scene. San Diego should be a foodie meca instead it seems to more closely resemble L.A.’s befuddled younger brother. I am sadly disappointed with the food section of the Union Tribune, I go to the reader for more current happenings. You would think change could only be positive for the Tribune, maybe not.

It is sad that the UT continues to reduce content and overall quality, especially in the food scene which is of increasing importance to all of us. However, it is no surprise that print is dying and content is increasingly, and will eventually be only found online. Local food bloggers, foodies, and independent, local-food oriented websites can hopefully take up the slack that the mainstream press is creating-and we’ll all be better off for that.

Seriously, who cares? There are such great blogs in this city to read what’s really going on in food. Besides, who reads the U-T anymore? The Reader is hit and miss. City Beat is deplorable. I would rather read mmmyoso or masa assassin any day of the week than these bloated critics.